


high above the highway aisle (but i could see for miles miles miles)

by islet



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 20:16:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10316141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islet/pseuds/islet
Summary: Sequel to 'my heart will howl (till you pull it off the ground)'.Phil works through his compartmentalisation, spends Christmas at the Howell residence, and tries to forget Schrodinger's Ring.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This sequel was a long time coming; do forgive me for posting a Christmas-themed fic in the middle of March. More notes at the end of this fic if you're interested! Title comes from 'Holocene' by Bon Iver this time.

Christmas came knocking on their door far too early, as far as Phil was concerned. It felt as if they had barely brushed past Halloween before they were hauling the Christmas decorations from storage and sitting cross-legged across each other in the lounge, trying to drag up the motivation to move. The Christmas tree lay forlornly in its box, waiting for one of them to reach in and begin to assemble it, but it felt as if all of the energy and motivation had been drained out of them for the foreseeable future. It was a rare day that Christmas took such low priority in the Dan and Phil house, and today was one of those days.

It was just a bad day; that was the problem. They’d spent the past seven hours in the Channelflip office going unproductively over World Tour dates and venues - a task Phil was _sure_ could’ve waited until next week, _surely_. But Dan was antsy and everyone else was antsy and it seemed as if Phil was the only person clinging onto a break that they couldn’t afford to have. Christmas didn’t feel anything like Christmas; it just seemed like another thing to tick off the Dan and Phil list. The existence of such a list was starting to grate on Phil’s nerves, and that was absolutely _terrifying_. There were undoubtedly days where their friendship felt more like a job than a real thing, but they were rarer than days of Christmas reluctance.

“Phil, I’ll do it,” Dan said, and it was then that Phil realised he’d been holding onto the plastic branch for several moments too long. “You look like you could use a nap.”

His voice was soft and for a picosecond it felt _wrong_. Phil was finding himself surprised by the lack of mock exasperation, and it was a horrifying realisation. It wasn’t as if their personas never bled into real life, but at the present moment it seemed dangerous — it felt as if they were careening around the verge of falling back into an unhealthy pattern of irritability and despair. Surely it wasn’t healthy to expect your partner to snap at you. Phil thought, not for the first time, that a relationship counsellor would probably have a lot to say about how they were handling things at the moment.

“Screw the Christmas tree,” Phil said, and Dan looked up at him, weary and confused. Phil sighed. It wasn’t as if the problem could be solved by what he was about to suggest, but it was worth a shot. “Come nap with me.”

“Do I get to be the big spoon?” Dan’s tone was light, but his relief was clear.

“Never,” Phil said emphatically.

“Deal.”

The Christmas tree looked a little sad now that it had been abandoned on the floor, but it’d seen enough in the past five years that it would’ve surely understood the importance of a thirty-minute cuddle — had it been sentient. Five years seemed like an awful long time to hold on to thirty pieces of cheap synthetic pine branches — perhaps they were due a new Christmas tree, but Phil couldn’t bring himself to let go of the sentiment attached to it.

Dan followed him into the bedroom easily enough. They’d been sleeping separately since last Wednesday — out of no real intent; life had just been too hectic and Dan too deep in existential cogitation to fall asleep anywhere but their sofa, laptop open to a page on mindfulness — and Phil sorely missed having someone groan under the weight of his arm hitting them in the midst of waking up.

This day had truly been dreadful, from the weather to the obligations and conversations, but none of that mattered anymore — what mattered was that there was a warm, slightly sweaty Dan in his bed, reaching an arm around him to pull him closer. Phil realised belatedly that he’d managed to lose a sock on their trek to his bedroom, but couldn’t bring himself to care. Dan pulled the duvet over them and traced the curve of Phil’s cheek in the semi-darkness.

“Missed you,” Dan said, and it was as if he’d pressed the release valve on the dam of feelings Phil had been hoarding. Phil felt the tension bleed out of him as he buried his head in the crook of Dan’s neck and breathed. Things were tough for sure; their schedules were ridiculous and the elephant in the room remained, uncomfortably digging its trunk into their chests whenever the word _marriage_ popped up, but perhaps they truly were on the mend after all.

It wasn’t as if they had had a lot of time to think about it. They’d been busy meeting deadlines and having business meetings and flying across the Atlantic to sign books and meet people, and there simply hadn’t been enough time to consider the gravity of the situation. Perhaps Phil _was_ avoiding it, but intense self-reflection wasn’t something he felt comfortable pencilling into his calendar between _Los Angeles book signing_ and _Younow meeting_.

Phil willed himself not to think about it. It was nearly Christmas after all. A time of joy, festivities, his mum’s cooking, socialising with distant relatives... and being separated from Dan by a ferry, a three-hour train ride and a questionable internet connection. Christmas would be good for them; time alone and away with family, a shift in the norm just large enough to allow them to sweep every remaining shred of awkwardness under the proverbial rug. When they reconvened in London on New Year’s Eve, things would undoubtedly slide back into routine, whatever that was meant to be.

The fabric of Dan’s sweater was scratchy against his skin, but it was comforting in its own odd little way. He hadn’t realised how much he’d needed this until this very moment — he’d known for years that it was highly likely he would never be able to cope without a warm, pliant Dan in his bed, but he hadn’t quite realised how much he’d missed Dan, the weight of his shoulders against Phil’s chest and the way he tried but never quite managed to make himself seem small enough to warrant being cuddled.

The mattress dipped under their weight. Phil had set an alarm so they wouldn’t get carried away, but in hindsight it now seemed like a terrible idea. It loomed over his head, threatening to bleep at any moment and ruin the cocoon of illusory _normalness_ that Dan had wrapped around them.

Phil reached across Dan for his phone. There was no harm in checking.

“I’d been meaning to ask you,” Dan said, and then stopped. Phil tensed, waiting for the blow to drop. “I mean, really it’s not a big deal,” Dan hastened to add. “Like, I know it sounds ominous, but really — it’s just a suggestion, so no pressure.”

Phil’s mind raced with possible options, none of them entirely good. A lot of them seemed to revolve around the theme of Dan possibly moving out, forgetting Phil entirely and moving on. Had Dan finally decided that he was done exploring the universe of Dan and Phil? Had he finally decided to move in with Nick Jonas? Would Phil have to go flat-hunting at Christmas? Who’d keep the Wii? Was it possible to continue his YouTube career from the spare bedroom of his parents’ flat in the Isle of Man? Could he get away with it?

“My nan asked if you’d like to come spend Christmas with us this year.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Phil blinked. “God, you scared me.”

“Sorry.”

The alarm beeped. Dan shut it off and set Phil’s phone as far away from them as physically possible without moving.

“She’s fully aware that you might say no,” Dan continued, when Phil was silent. “I did tell her that the Lester clan takes Christmas very seriously.”

“They do.” Phil sighed. His fringe was too long again and it tickled at his eyes. He swore Fabrice left it this way on purpose to ensure Phil’s loyalty as a returning customer. “Isn’t it a bit weird though? If I just came along?”

“I joined your family for Father’s Day this year,” Dan pointed out.

“Yes, but _Christmas_.”

“Fair enough.” Dan’s tone was carefully neutral. “Christmas’s quite a big, important holiday, isn’t it?”

“I mean—” Phil sighed. They’d barely been out of the woods before being thrown in head-first again. It nagged at the edges of his heart like an itch that couldn’t be scratched. “I _want_ to.”

He half-expected Dan to reply, but Dan was being careful and giving him space, which was apparently Dan’s default mode of action these days. Phil hated it; he hated feeling like he was being catered to, as if he was extra fragile because Dan hadn’t been receptive towards his wild idea of getting married. Whether or not this was a hundred and twelve percent true was irrelevant, as far as Phil was concerned. He desperately wanted everything to go back to normal — the usual ebb and flow of compromise that they’d never had to _work_ for.

(Other than in 2012, but 2012 hadn’t actually happened, as far as Phil was concerned.)

Christmas was a can of worms he wasn’t entirely sure he was willing to open. Spending Christmas apart was _safe_  — it was sometimes awful and it was terribly lonely, but it was safe. The distant Lester relatives twice removed were easily placated with a smooth _Dan’s with family, maybe next year_ and that was the topic dropped for the next year. It was a practiced routine that never went awry.

“Try new things?” Dan said. He had a small smile that was more hopeful than anything, and Phil desperately wanted to kiss it. “We could do Christmas with the Lesters next year. Or we could stay here and make everyone visit us. Don’t think this flat could accommodate thirty people, so Aunt Eleanor might not be able to be here — oh, what a _shame_ she can’t spread festive joy by convincing people to sign anti-immigrant petitions.”

“What would we ever do without her,” Phil agreed. He appreciated the sarcasm, it took the spotlight off him for a moment. “I promise I’ll think about it.”

“No pressure though.”

“No pressure.”

There was a half-birthed Christmas tree on their living room floor and a stack of dishes that needed a desperate scrubbing in the kitchen, but Dan was pressing a kiss to the base of Phil’s neck and _really_ , nothing else seemed to matter at all.

* * *

 

The idea of Christmas seemed so _rude_ when there was so much left to be done. The thought reverberated in Phil’s mind as he made his way to the next platform at the King's Cross station. Dan had a separate meeting to attend to this morning, which left Phil with the task of occupying himself enough that he didn’t have to think about spending Christmas with the Howells.

Christmas with the Howells. It seemed like a good title for a Christmas-themed murder mystery. If Agatha Christie was alive, Phil might have tweeted her. Would Phil be the murdered, or the murderer? Both options seemed equally likely.

He had yet to broach the subject with his parents. They had never seemed too upset if Martyn happened to miss a holiday or two, but this was _Christmas_. Even Cornelia’s Swedish charm wasn’t nearly strong enough to pull a Lester out of his home for Christmas, though God knows she’d tried. But Cornelia was happy enough to spend a warm Christmas tucked up in an ugly blanket Phil’s mum had found in somebody’s garage, sipping eggnog and watching Martyn lose spectacularly to Phil in this year’s family favourite board game. The thread that connected Dan to his family was frayed enough; as much as Phil knew Dan would have preferred a cuddle on the overstuffed sofa in the Lesters’ over-decorated lounge, it wouldn’t do to pull Dan away from the family he tried so hard to keep.

There was an unspoken tally that needed to be kept. A fragile balance. This Christmas at mine, next Christmas at yours. The scorecard might as well have been pinned to the refrigerator, or tattooed across Phil’s forehead.

Phil was desperate for an excuses and he knew it. There was the nagging feeling that no matter what, he would simply _disappoint_. As much as he smiled and as expensive as his cursory bottled wine gift might be, nothing quite erased the fact that he was, in their eyes, the person Dan had thrown his prestigious law degree away for. It didn’t matter what the truth was; Dan’s father had made his feelings completely clear in the e-mail Phil had kept tucked away for the past seven years.

The tube slowed to a stop, screeching in protest. Phil stepped into the carriage and wished he could stand there for the rest of his life, shuttling from station to station, never stepping out, never having to face the fact that outside, there was a world that he had created, and consequences that he had to deal with.

It suddenly just seemed all too much. The flawed idea of marriage, the threat of Christmas away from family, the imminent world tour that meant more costumes and makeup and bright lights that made Dan’s eyes shine in a way that made Phil’s heart ache.

He closed his eyes and willed his head to stop pounding. In the darkness, he could hear Dan’s voice, rippling with uncertainty.

_I don’t think I can do this anymore—_

It was a scene Phil had tried desperately, time and time again, to scrub from his memory. A late-night conversation on the balcony of their Manchester flat, the light in the room so orange it always felt like October. A crying Dan sat in the corner, desperately trying to pretend he wasn’t afraid.

And a tired Phil, eyes towards the stars, pretending he could see them, pretending they were telling him everything was going to be okay.

In that year they had broken up more times than Phil had cared to count, the constant shift of their love confusing and terrifying all at the same time. They could wake up in love and go to bed in tears, and the cycle would repeat itself like a dog chasing its tail, forever unsatisfied, forever determined.

Phil opened his eyes, blinking away the streetlights of Manchester and the taste of fear. The ache in his heart ebbed and flowed.

There were no stars to look at here, and no pretending that everything was going to be okay.

* * *

 

They met at Starbucks for a coffee and a cake, because Christmas drinks were tradition. Dan had dark circles under his eyes and a twitch in his cheek that didn’t quite go away. The exhaustion was creeping up upon them, hands outstretched for an embrace.

“The meeting was _horrible_ ,” Dan said, reaching across the table to stir Phil’s drink for him. “I turned their offer down so fucking fast, you have no idea.”

“I bought a Christmas tree,” Phil said. “A real live one.”

“Oh.” Dan blinked in surprise. “Why?”

“Retail therapy.”

“Something wrong?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“You got me.” Phil smiled. “I was just thinking about Christmas.”

“No pressure,” Dan said. “But my grandma thinks you’re adorable and wants to know your true opinion on her living room decor.”

Phil chuckled. “I just don’t know if it’ll be a good idea,” he admitted. “We’ve been doing fine with our separate Christmases. It’s not that I don’t want to spend Christmas together—”

“It’s just that you don’t think we should,” Dan finished.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say.” The headache was threatening to come back, and Phil pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to stave it off. “What do your parents think about it?”

“They’re not opposing it.” Dan sighed. “It’s not like you haven’t been around them before. Hell, you’ve even met grandaunts _I’ve_ not seen in ten years.”

“As your friend.”

“Well, yes.” Dan sighed. “About that.”

“What, are we going to play friendly roommates to Aunt Beatrice and her thirty-six dogs?”

“Please,” Dan said. “She only has thirty-five.” There was a worried smile that quivered. “I’ve told them.”

“Oh.” Phil didn’t quite know how he felt about that, all things considered. “And they still want me around for Christmas?”

“Jesus, Phil, my family aren’t a bunch of homophobes.”

“I know, I know. I just—”

“Whatever idea you’ve got in that massive head of yours about how my family thinks of you, it’s wrong. I guarantee you, it’s absolutely wrong.” Dan shook his head. “My parents _like_ you.”

It seemed hard to believe. The first words of Dan’s dad’s angry email were starting to come back to him. _Hello. This is Dan’s father. I am writing to you—_

“They’re just bad at the emotions thing, I told you,” Dan said. “We don’t exactly gather around the fireplace and sing Christmas carols. On a good day, we drink a lot of wine and everybody asks me if I’ve met ‘insert famous person’s name here’. It’s fine if you want to spend Christmas with your parents, but don’t let it be because you think my family has anything against you.”

Phil was glad for his coffee as a distraction. It seemed like he had well and truly run out of excuses this time. He couldn’t quite figure out why he was even looking for them in the first place. He should have been happy to spend Christmas with Dan. He should have been jumping at the opportunity. Something had changed, and as much as they both wanted to pretend otherwise, it undeniably had to do with the elephant in the room.

“I’ll call my mum,” Phil said, eventually.

“Okay.” Dan’s voice was soft, rather than triumphant. It struck Phil then that perhaps Dan wasn’t entirely keen on the idea either. Perhaps they were all just pawns in Grandma Howell’s game of chess.

“I love you,” Phil said, voice low. They were still in Starbucks, after all. Dan’s family was just the tip of the iceberg; there was a hungry world out there waiting for them.

“Love you too.”

Phil watched Dan’s face as he flipped through the morning Twitter feed, letting his coffee cool as he traced each line, wondering if, after seven years, he had committed Dan’s face to memory.

He probably had. Recently it was all he ever saw in the dark. A pressing issue that needed to be dealt with.

Phil was content to avoid it entirely.

* * *

 

His mother picked up on the third ring. There was something to be said about a mother’s voice — Phil was sure she could make an oncoming tornado sound comforting.

“Dan wants me to go to his for Christmas.”

“Oh, hello to you too.”

“Sorry.” Phil flushed, feeling like he was thirteen again. He took a deep breath. “Dan’s family invited me over for Christmas.”

“I’ll tell Dad to save you some pudding.”

Phil gaped. “You want me to go?”

“It’s Dan’s family, of _course_ you should go!”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts, Philip.”

It bothered him that she wasn’t on his side. It bothered him that he had a _side_ at all. It should have been an easy decision, it should have been an instant yes, it should have been — well, Dan should have been his husband.

And there it was again, the resentment he had tried so hard to let go of, but the bitterness burned in his chest like a fire.

“I’ll see you on Boxing Day,” Phil said eventually.

She hummed. “New Year’s is fine too.”

“ _New Year’s_?”

“We’ve got Martyn and Cornelia to keep us entertained,” she said.

“Nice to know we were only birthed for the entertainment.”

“Always, dear.”

Phil wasn’t sure how to feel about his mother’s enthusiasm. He’d secretly been hoping to be able to say _sorry, my mum said no_ , like he did when Susan Bigley invited him to her special, best-friends-only birthday party.

But Dan wasn’t Susan Bigley, and Phil should have been over the rejection by now. It would be selfish of him to hold on to the way it had made him feel forever. He needed to process it and move on.

Dan looked hopeful when Phil re-entered the lounge. The Christmas tree was still lying dismantled on the floor, and one of the branches had made its way across the carpet. The real, live Christmas tree wasn’t due to be delivered until next week, which meant the corner was still void of festivity — a situation Dan considered a travesty.

“She thinks it’s a great idea,” Phil said.

Dan hesitated. “And you don’t?” He seemed more guarded than usual, but he shifted aside to let Phil sit on the sofa.

Phil sighed. “I’ve made it all up in my head,” he said. “How it’s supposed to be, how everyone will react, what I’m going to say to impress your mother -”

“My mother is _never_ impressed.” This was true, but Phil had unjustifiably high hopes in his own icebreakers.

“Well, in my head, I had this joke about penguins—”

“ _Phil_.” Dan was starting to laugh, at the very least. “Look, let’s have an early night and I’ll call my nan tomorrow and everything will be fine and happy.”

He said it with so much conviction, Phil _really_ wanted to believe him. What was the harm in believing something like that, anyway? There was no harm, no harm at all.

Phil relaxed against the warmth of Dan’s chest, feeling it rise and dip under his shoulder. It seemed to him like they were boats bobbing along the coastline, looking for a safe place to ground.

“Christmas will be good,” Dan murmured, resting his chin on the top of Phil’s head. If there was ever a moment to feel more loved than ever, this was it.

Phil shut his eyes and tried to feel it.

* * *

 

The meetings and emails began to dwindle down as Christmas grew nearer and nearer. Events dropped off their schedule like autumn leaves and Phil found himself missing them. Dan grew more and more restless with each free hour, and busied himself by walking down to the shops to buy wrapping paper, one roll at a time.

Their Christmas tree had finally been assembled in a desperate, last minute surge of motivation. The live Christmas tree had been diverted on route and donated to a nearby care home — Phil had cracked under the pressure of a house plant _that_ large and the idea of having to care for it. Their friends’ children had finally grown old enough to start bringing handmade baubles home, and Dan and Phil had found themselves with a growing collection of glittery, lopsided ornaments. The baubles had a certain je ne sais quoi about them, and they twirled cheerily in the warm light of their lounge, casting shadows across the already-wrapped presents Dan had stacked neatly under the tree.

Phil woke up on a Monday morning with nothing to do and an armful of sleepy, pliant Dan. It seemed so wrong to not be rushing or worrying about something or the other. Life wouldn’t truly settle down — not for the next year, at least — but they were getting into the groove of it.

“I’ll make coffee,” Dan mumbled, but made no attempt to leave Phil’s grasp. “On second thought, you’ll make coffee.”

“I’m not moving,” Phil said, and for the first time, felt like he really meant it. All the tension and regret from everything that had happened felt as if it had just disappeared completely, finally gone after days of slow, slow ebbing.

It had frustrated him to no end that _dealing_ _with the problem_ had been so torturous and such A Process. They’d had bad days before, bad weeks, and even bad years, but this time every single day had felt worse than the last. Phil had a tendency, more so than Dan, to get in his own head about things. Dan had grown to be vocal, and Phil had shut his thoughts away behind layers and layers of mental doors.

The key, as the couples’ counselling e-book he’d secretly bought off Amazon claimed, was to get the thoughts out of the head and into the room. Out of the head, and into the room. Phil felt it was almost impossible.

The thought of the day was _I love you and I’m thankful for our relationship_. It was Chapter Three of the book (Chapter One and Two being _Out of the Head_ and _Into the Room_ respectively). Phil was determined to not let his £2.49 go to waste.

“I love you,” Phil said. The second half of that sentence was much harder to get out.

“You’ve been saying it a lot these days,” Dan mused. It wasn’t accusatory. It was, Phil was slightly impressed to note, quite neutral. “Don’t wear yourself out.”

“You’re supposed to say _I love you too_ ,” Phil said, fingers moving towards Dan’s one rebellious forehead curl. Dan’s curls were like a secret only he could see — tortuous and frizzy from years of straightening. He tugged on it gently.

“I love you too,” Dan parroted faithfully. His smile was warm. “Please make me coffee.”

Phil sighed but made no attempt to move. “Why have coffee when we can stay here?” What he meant was, _today is a good day, please don’t make me leave._

Dan was silent for a while. Phil wondered what he was thinking. They’d always been on the same page — or at least, close enough that Phil never really had to worry.

Finally, Dan sighed. “Today is a good day, isn’t it.”

Phil felt a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“It is,” he agreed. “It is.”

* * *

 

The Day — fully capitalised for dramatic effect — came far too soon, as far as Phil was concerned. The reminder on his phone to book train tickets to the North had been taken as a reminder to book train tickets to Wokingham. Phil had never booked train tickets to Berkshire before — he’d always met members of the Howell family in London, a safe space where he knew where things were and tube stations were open till late. Berkshire was scary. Berkshire was, by Dan’s account of it, country roads and scary teenagers.

Phil didn’t feel equipped to deal with either.

They’d been to Reading once before for the Reading Festival, but Dan had used the excuse of _too much work_ to not stop home, and Phil had used the excuse of free pizza for the BBC crew to stay in the dining hall and stress eat his worries.

Nevertheless, he had tried to start packing a suitcase. The only thing that comforted him was that Dan hadn’t made much progress on his own packing process. Dan, as it turned out, was more worried about whether or not he could get the gaming video up in time before Naeem their Uber driver decided they were not worth his time.

“You should pack,” Phil informed him, as he watched Dan edit from the doorway to the office. “Naeem is going to blacklist us if we make him wait again.”

“I gave him a calzone last time, we’re on good terms.”

“Do you want me to help you pack?”

Dan looked up from the screen, puppy eyes on full blast. “Could you please,” he said.

“I’m going to pack the _ugliest_ shirts,” Phil said.

“Then _you_ can wear them.” Dan had turned back to the screen by now, so Phil took a moment to appreciate his awful posture. There were certain things you had to learn to love. Like the way Dan left earrings on the sofa, pointy-end up, and the way he hunched over the computer like a monkey learning how to type.

They had thirty minutes on the clock and Phil had packed exactly two pairs of pants and nothing else. “I’m thankful for our relationship,” he said, and meant it.

“Oh,” Dan said, trying frantically to pause the gaming video. “I—”

Phil took the chance to escape before Dan could look away from the screen. There were suitcases that needed to be packed, after all.

Back in his room, the open suitcase looked incredibly daunting. The two pairs of pants he had packed suddenly seemed inappropriate — they were pink and one of them had bananas on them. Phil felt like this was inappropriate for a first boyfriend family Christmas.

“They’re not going to see my pants.” Saying it out loud made the entire situation seem ridiculous. If everything was normal, Phil would have been enroute to the Isle of Man, feeling sick on a ferry. “They’re not going to see my pants.”

There was no time to worry about what the Howell family would think about his clothing choices, Phil decided. Confidence was key. So what if Dan’s father hated the T-shirt with the bats on them? So what if Dan’s grandmother thought Phil’s jeans were too tight? Did it matter?

(It probably did, but Phil was resolved not to care.)

Dan kept a half-packed suitcase ready to go at all times. Phil didn’t know what to think about that. Was that forward-thinking? Was that a testament to how insecure Dan felt in this relationship? Of course it wasn’t, but Phil’s mind was on a roll of self-sabotage and exploring deep-rooted insecurities.

Phil moved reluctantly towards Dan’s room, hoping none of Dan’s favourite shirts were in the _laundry sometime maybe_ pile that was slowly but surely building up next to their washer. Dan was hard enough to pack for, never mind a crisis that the one black shirt (that Phil swore looked exactly the same as the other thirty-two hanging brand new in the closet) was dirty.

Taking a deep breath, he unzipped Dan’s suitcase. With ten minutes left on the clock, this would have to be a speed pack. If Dan ended up with three odd socks and no pants, Phil couldn’t be blamed. He was trying his best, jitters and all.

Dan had done a reasonably poor job of unpacking the last time he had used this suitcase, which meant that clothes from the UK tour were still sitting haphazardly amongst a broken toiletry bag and an almost-empty bottle of lube.

(They’d retrieved the bottle of lube painstakingly after it had rolled under the sofa in the Newcastle hotel room, and Phil had felt at the time that it was a testament to their relationship’s old age that they’d put sex on hold to rescue an empty bottle of lube that they didn’t even need from the dusty underbelly of a hotel room sofa.)

Phil surreptitiously removed the lube from the bag. It seemed inappropriate to bring to a family Christmas. Surely _this_ was rational.

And there it was. A tiny black box that was nearly completely buried in Black Shirt Number Nineteen that hardly ever got worn because it was slightly scratchier than Black Shirt Number Twenty-Three. Phil felt his heart leap into his throat, pounding in the rhythm of _it’s a ring it’s a ring it’s a ring it’s a ring_.

“Phil—” came the call from the hallway. There was a tinge of worry to it. “Phil, I can do my own packing, I’ve finished the gaming video now.”

There were exactly twelve steps from the stairs to the door of Dan’s bedroom, which meant Phil had exactly three seconds to open the box, close it, and pretend he had never seen it.

There was no way he was this agile. With trembling hands, he threw the lube back into the suitcase, wincing as it bounced off the corner of the little black box.

“Phil.” Dan was standing at his bedroom doorway now, looking apprehensive. His eyes searched Phil’s face before settling on the suitcase. “I can pack my own suitcase.”

“Just on time,” Phil said, proud of how smoothly the words left him. “I was about to start.”

Dan’s relief was visible. “Go make sure you’ve blown out every candle,” he said. “I can take it from here.”

Phil wished he could spit his heart out of his mouth. Instead, he nodded. “See you in seven minutes,” he said. His feet felt like cinder blocks, but Dan didn’t seem to notice.

_A ring. A ring a ring a ring._

It could have been anything. Phil willed his mind to listen. It could have been some new earrings. A fishing hook. Phil couldn’t remember if Dan’s father liked fishing. Surely it was something he should have known. A Dan Fact for the mental scrapbook.

Phil started the scented candle check dutifully. There were a hundred and one things he needed to be thinking about. Whether or not he had packed the present for Dan’s mother. If he could remember the punchline to the penguin joke. What he was supposed to say when he met the whole Howell clan.

Still, the words rang in his head like tiny bells.

_A ring. A ring a ring a ring._

Phil knocked his head a little too heavily against the kitchen cupboard and prayed for inner peace.

* * *

 

Naeem was cheerful today, a blessing from the universe’s overlords. Phil had completed his scented candle check before Dan emerged victorious from his bedroom with what he claimed was a fully, professionally packed suitcase.

The soup of worries in Phil’s gut hadn’t stopped churning. If he thought about it, which was something he wasn’t particularly keen to do, the black box could have been anything. Earrings from a fan, a ring from a fan. Phil tried to remember the last time Dan had used this suitcase — Liverpool? They’d shared a suitcase during the weird road trip to France, and it’d been Phil’s.

Surely out of the hundreds of fans in Liverpool, one of them could have brought a ring. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

The easy way would have been to _just ask Dan_ , but Dan was embroiled in a passionate argument with Naeem over whether or not Obscure Artist Phil Didn’t Know’s new album was good. Besides, they had steadfastly ignored any and all mentions of marriage since the whole fiasco. They’d simply moved on the very next morning, throwing themselves head-first into a gaming video and final talks with Crunchyroll for the tour bus sponsorship. Moving on the way they knew how.

It made no sense for it to be a ring, Phil rationalised. Dan had been the one resistant to marriage anyway, uncomfortable with the idea of being a husband. Dan thought marriage was more of a _when I’m thirty_ thing. The trouble was that they couldn’t both be thirty at the same time.

Maybe they would float on forever in this weird limbo of being in love but with nothing to call it, all the way until they were eighty and somebody invented a time machine and the ability to coexist in different planes of time. Maybe then, they could be thirty at the same time, and finally get married.

It was a thought drizzled in bitterness, so Phil shut it away. There was _no point_ and he was sick of being upset about it. He loved Dan, Dan loved him. He hadn’t picked the right moment to say _marry me_ , even if he had meant it then.

Naeem slowed the car to a stop and looked over his shoulder at Phil.

“Y’alright?” he asked.

“Nervous,” Phil admitted. “Have you been to Wokingham?”

“Oh yeah. Country roads and awful teenagers.”

Phil stared at him.

“Dan told me to say that,” Naeem said, chuckling. “Have a good one, boys.”

And then they were out on the pavement, suitcases by their feet, thirty minutes early for their train. Phil’s jitters were at an all time high. He’d wrapped and re-wrapped the bottle of wine twice. It was a good bottle of wine. He’d paid a lot of money for it. Fiona the wine shop lady had seemed to know what she was talking about.

“C’mon,” Dan said gently, but Phil’s cinder block feet were back, pulling him towards the ground.

“I have to ask you about something,” Phil said, voice unsteady. “It’s not a big deal and I’m not trying to make it a big deal—”

“Oh _my god_ , Dan and Phil!”

Dan whipped around, and Phil groaned internally. Was this his punishment for having behaved poorly at some point this year? Was Santa punishing him by making him live cliché after cliché?

“Hi!” Dan said automatically. “What are your names?”

Phil thought, not for the first time, that they could have done with some fake moustaches and large hats. Certain times, you just want to escape unnoticed. He’d taken a fan selfie by the urinal once, thankfully with his trousers fully zipped but an impressively full bladder.

“They’ll know we’re off to yours,” Phil said, once the pictures had been taken and the hugs had been given. “It’s Christmas Eve, there aren’t a lot of deductions to be made.”

“We could be going our separate ways,” Dan said. “Maybe we decided to split the taxi fare.”

Phil sighed. A headache was knocking at his temples like Eliza Pancakes. “I need to ask you about something,” he said.

Dan seemed to steel himself. “Go on,” he said.

“I don’t know if I want to hear the answer,” Phil said, and that was the truth. _Not asking_ made it Schrodinger’s Ring. It was both a ring, and not a ring. It was a possibility. An open door.

“Okay,” Dan said, and didn’t push it.

* * *

 

Dan’s brother Henry opened the door with the apprehensiveness Phil remembered having himself when Martyn had brought Cornelia home for the first time.

He was probably projecting, but it didn’t hurt to try and remember how Cornelia dealt with it. Maybe a joke about Swedish fish. Phil didn’t have any jokes about Swedish fish.

“I can take the wine,” Henry said, and Phil realised he was still holding onto it a little too tightly.

“Oh, thanks.” Phil winced. Not the best start.

Dan poked his head through the doorway and looked around. “Where’s mum?”

“Guest bedroom. She’s still setting it up because Dad convinced her it was necessary.”

“Me and Phil can—”

“Share a bed, I know. Dad thinks it’s more polite to not assume.” Henry shrugged. “It’s nice to see you again, Phil.”

Henry had disappeared, as teenagers were wont to do, and they settled into the sofa, Dan declaring that carting their suitcases upstairs wouldn’t be worth it until they had unloaded all the presents. Colin the dog had discovered a deep interest in Phil’s shoes, the sight of which was almost cute enough to distract him from the awkward atmosphere.

“Shouldn’t we tell your mum not to bother with the guest bedroom?” Phil whispered. “It’ll be a lot of work for nothing.”

“It’s fine, my uncle will stay over tomorrow anyway.” Dan picked Colin up and handed him to Phil. “You look like you need some dog-petting stress relief.”

“I’m _terrified_ ,” Phil said. “Where’s your Dad?” He felt like a deer being stalked in the woods.

“Probably at the pub. Did I tell you he joined a gardening club?”

Colin settled contentedly into Phil’s lap, resting his head on Dan’s thigh. Dan’s house was weirdly silent. In the Lester house, nobody stopped talking unless they were eating. Phil missed his mum’s ridiculous headbands and the Smurf Christmas album that _always_ played in the background.

“Maybe we should put some Christmas music on,” Phil whispered. He didn’t know why he was whispering, it just seemed wrong to speak in a house so quiet.

“It’s fine,” Dan said. He looked tired, like all of the stress from tour had finally caught up to him. “I rather not announce our visit with a grand entrance.”

Phil realised then that he hadn’t thought to think how Dan was feeling. He’d assumed that Dan would be fine — it was _Dan’s family_ after all — but Dan’s shoulders were tense the same way Phil’s were, and there was a tightness in his jaw that Phil knew preluded the inevitable freak out.

“Hey,” Phil said, shifting to wrap an arm around Dan’s shoulder. They hadn’t sat like this in years — somehow Dan had sneakily grown bigger than Phil, shoulders broader, hands larger than at eighteen. “Hey.”

Dan leaned his head against Phil’s shoulder, rebellious curl beginning to tickle at Phil’s chin. “I love your hair like this,” Phil said resolutely, pressing a kiss into it. Perhaps he was being selfish by worrying. He was here _with Dan_ , and they had conquered all sorts of things together. This was no different.

The gentle rise and fall of Dan’s chest meant he had fallen asleep, and Phil stared at the Christmas tree with its Christmas lights. It didn’t look any different from the usual Lester Christmas tree. There were homemade baubles hanging from the branches, and Phil wondered if he could tell from here which ones Dan had made.

Footsteps made their way down the stairs and slowed to a stop beside the sofa. Phil turned to see Dan’s mum looking a little frazzled, but smiling. Dan was sound asleep, his head a dead weight against Phil’s shoulder.

“Hi,” she said softly. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thank you for having me,” Phil said automatically. It’d been ingrained into him since he was old enough to have play dates. _Thank you for having me, Mrs So and So. You have a lovely home. Can I have a glass of water, please?_ “Dan’s asleep,” he said. “Long day.”

“Yeah.” She seemed at a lost for words, and Phil supposed he felt the same. “Do you want to move upstairs if that’s more comfortable?”

“It’s no bother,” Phil said. “He hasn’t slept very well—” he stopped. He wasn’t sure if these were things Dan told his family. “Just needs a nap.”

Dan’s mum sighed. “I’ll give you boys a shout when dinner’s ready,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Phil. And then, “you have a lovely home.”

She chuckled softly and disappeared into the kitchen. Phil let himself sink back into the sofa. Dan’s arm tightened around his waist.

It was a house of unspoken words, this much Phil could tell.

“Thank you,” Dan mumbled, and Phil let his hand travel to the back of Dan’s head, gently making his way through the waves that were coming undone from hairspray.

Phil thought about the hungry way Dan used to say _I love you_ after sex, wrapped up in Phil, wrapped up in his duvet from university that Dan had proclaimed The Ugliest Duvet Ever, wrapped up in a house where everybody said exactly how they felt.

“I love you,” Phil said, and it seemed to reverberate around the room, ringing around the corners of every unspoken word.

* * *

 

Phil had always been good at small talk. He’d always been chatty, sometimes to a fault. Sat at the dinner table however, his ability to break ice had seemingly left him.

“I was thinking about going to uni in the States,” Henry was saying. “I know it’s really expensive but if I take a gap year I might be able to make enough money to pay for like, halls and stuff. It’s just the fees that would be—”

“You’ll barely have enough to cover the visa,” said Dan’s mum. “What’s wrong with studying in Britain? Surely there are loads of great unis that teach filmmaking. Susie McKay from church has a son in York.”

“Phil went to York,” Dan piped up. “How was it, Phil?”

Phil faltered, caught off guard. He’d been focusing on his peas.

“I did a Masters in Video Production and I liked it,” he offered. “It was completely different back then though, we didn’t have the sort of programmes that you will have access to now.”

“I just think the States would be better,” said Henry. “They’re just better about these things.”

“We can’t afford it,” Dan’s mum said.

“I—”

Phil wished he could be excused. This was the sort of thing his family had never needed to worry about — Martyn had studied music production and Phil had studied English and they had been fortunate enough to never have had to argue about it at the dinner table. You did what you wanted, within reason. Phil suspected that with the Lesters, reason stretched an amplitude far larger than any family.

“I can afford it,” Dan said. It was true, he could. “I’ll pay.”

“Dan, it’s _your_ money.” Dan’s dad had been silent the whole time, and there was an air of finality to his voice that made Phil want to tremble. “We don’t expect you to—”

“But I can, and it’s fine,” said Dan. “If he wants to study in the States, money isn’t a problem.”

Dan’s mum sighed. “That money is yours and Phil’s—”

“We don’t share our finances,” Dan said. It was almost stern. If the situation wasn’t so tense Phil might have been a little turned on. “The money is mine and I say if Henry needs it for film school in the US then he can have it.”

He had left them no place to argue.

“See, Dan agrees,” said Henry, smug. “Best brother ever.”

The conversation seemed adjourned at that point. Phil didn’t want to read the air of the room — he was afraid of what he might find. Instead he looked up and smiled. “Did Dan ever tell you about that time I hit my head on the very first night of our tour?

This — _this_ was easy. It was a performance he had mastered years ago when Dan’s parents started visiting them in London and insisting on paying for dinner. Phil imagined them to be sitting in one of the Strand’s restaurants, being served fusion food in blood-red mood lighting.

Under the table, Dan knocked a socked foot against Phil’s, a small unspoken thank you.

* * *

 

Stories of the tour had helped diffuse the situation and when it came time to put the plates to wash, Phil was feeling accomplished and a lot more confident.

“Phil, help me with the dishes, will you?” The tone of Dan’s dad’s voice didn’t suggest a choice. Phil felt his confidence crumbling to dust at his feet.

“He’s a guest, Tim,” said Dan’s mum. “Henry will help you. Go on, Henry.”

“Please, let me help,” said Phil.

“Good man,” Tim said. “C’mon then.”

Dan looked amused when Phil glanced at him. _You owe me_ , Phil hoped his eyes said. Knowing Dan, he’d probably interpreted it as _I love doing this!_ For all their psychic connection, Dan had never been able to read Phil's eyes very well.

“I’ll wash and you’ll dry,” said Tim, once they were tucked away in the kitchen. He handed Phil a dishcloth and smiled. “You look terrified.”

“It’s been a long day,” Phil said.

“It has.”

Silence settled calmly over the room as Tim washed and Phil dried, a surprisingly efficient process. Phil considered bringing up his tendency to drop and smash plates but thought better of it at the very last moment.

“I don’t know if you remember this,” Tim said, when the last of the dishes had been dried and put away. “But a long time ago, when Dan had first quit law school, I sent you an e-mail.”

Phil remembered it. He remembered every single scathing word. He’d never shown it to Dan — there was no point, it had come from a place of love and concern for Dan, and that was all that mattered as far as Phil was concerned.

“I want to apologise for that e-mail,” Tim said, when Phil remained silent. “I wanted to protect my son and at the time I thought he was making the biggest mistake of his life.”

“So did I,” Phil said. That was the week Dan’s kisses tasted like the sea for all he had been crying, the week Phil had called his mum in a panic not knowing what else to do. Dan had decided that week that he wasn’t cut out for university and had returned from the meeting with his academic advisor with a determination to make the most of YouTube and a three-year plan to becoming More Successful Than a Fucking Lawyer.

“Ah, well, I didn’t mean the things I said, and you sure as hell didn’t deserve to hear all of that from me.”

“Water under the bridge,” said Phil. “I, uh, Dan is wonderful.” There wasn’t anything else he could think of to say. Dan was wonderful, Phil loved him. Some days it felt like those were the two truths of the universe and nothing more — nothing more was required.

“He obviously, uh, loves you a lot, and you’ve been there for him when we couldn’t.” Tim sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know if this is necessarily in the cards and all that, but I mean, I know you could if you want to now, these days, can’t you? Get married, I mean.”

“Oh.” Phil blinked. “Yeah, it’s fully legal.”

“Great, great. Should’ve always been, y’know. Me and Karen, we go to church but we don’t, y’know, we love Dan and we think you’re great—”

“I don’t think Dan’s quite interested in marriage just yet,” Phil said.

Tim nodded. “Right, well. I’m just saying, if you ever feel like it’s right for the both of you, Dan’s mum and I — just saying, we would be very happy and supportive.”

“Thank you.”

Tim clapped him on the back. “Well, I think we should join the rest of them, what do you say? I’m sure Henry has lots to say about the new Wes Anderson film or some other, and he always needs a big audience.”

Phil let himself be led out of the kitchen. The whole conversation had caught him off guard — an apology _and_ a blessing? Perhaps this was Santa’s way of saying he had done a good job of being a human this year after all.

Dan was sat on the floor with Colin when they entered the lounge, and he looked up inquiringly at Phil as he shifted aside to make room.

“Good talk?”

“Great.”

Henry was, true to Tim’s prediction, going on about a Wes Anderson film.

“I would have made a Powerpoint presentation,” he said, when Phil caught his eye. “But we didn’t have a projector and Mum said it would have been excessive.”

“I would have appreciated it,” Phil promised.

“Stellar brother-in-law,” said Henry. “As I was saying, notice how the colour palette in this scene is drawing reference to earlier in the movie, when—”

“I’m really glad you’re here with me,” Dan leaned in to whisper. “Best Christmas ever.”

The storm in Phil’s chest had turned into a gentle drizzle. Colin the dog buried his head in Phil’s lap, a cuddle extortionist who had clearly learned from the finest.

All was well.

* * *

 

Dan’s bedroom had gone through a drastic transformation — the brown had been replaced with a cool grey that made everything look modern and less like a house from the 1980s. His bedsheets were different too — Phil remembered the crinkled cream ones that Dan _hated_ all those years ago, pixelated through the shoddy Internet connection, but still unmistakably drab.

“What did my dad want?” Dan asked. His suitcase lay wide open on the floor and from where Phil was standing the tiny black box was nowhere to be seen. They’d unloaded all the presents downstairs — Dan preferred writing cheques for Christmas but Phil thought it was against the spirit of Christmas to not have a single present.

“You know. Just manly chats.”

“Manly chats.” Dan looked unappeased. “Did he share embarrassing photos from my childhood?”

“Oh yeah, loads. Especially the ones with the dresses.”

Dan looked scandalised. “He didn’t _really_ , did he?”

“No.”

“Oh, good.”

“Seems so weird to be on this side of the screen,” Phil said. He was feeling nostalgic, which was never a good idea. Nostalgia led to thoughts about marriage which led back to the black box that he should really stop thinking about.

“That’s how I felt when I was in your bedroom for the very first time,” Dan said. “Like I’d stepped into Narnia. This is probably a lot less glamorous though.”

Crawling into bed with Dan, all things considered, was the easiest thing Phil had done today, and it was a pretty small bed. In the darkness, Phil could just about make out the shape of Dan’s jaw and shoulder.

“Can I ask you about the black box?”

Dan stiffened. “Um.”

“I didn’t open it, and I didn’t think it was anything — I mean, I don’t have any expectations. I’m just curious.”

Dan sighed. “Can you ask me tomorrow?”

“ _Dan_.” Phil stared up at the ceiling. “Is it a present from a fan?”

“No, I bought it.”

“Do I really have to ask you tomorrow?”

Dan sighed. “I would say ask me next week but I don’t think you could wait that long.”

Phil turned around, feeling for Dan’s hand in the dark. “I don’t care if it’s a fishing hook or a penis ring or half a best friend necklace,” he said. “Is it supposed to be my Christmas present?”

“It’s not a _fishing hook_ , Phil.” Dan grinned, smoothing back Phil’s hair with his free hand. “Look, if I ask you to forget about it, will you?”

Phil bit his lip. He would try, of course he would, but surely Dan knew there was no way in hell he could actually put it out of mind.

“Tell me it’s a fishing hook for your dad and I will,” he said eventually.

“It’s a fishing hook for my dad.”

“Okay,” said Phil. He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed. There weren’t any guidelines for this in his couples counselling e-book. Chapter Four was about feeding your partner to increase intimacy.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Dan said, voice hoarse and sincere. “I am.”

Outside the rain had picked up a conversation with the wind, and as the windows shook gently along the rhythmic tapping of rain, Phil held onto Dan’s hand and, for the first time today, thought about absolutely nothing.

* * *

 

Morning broke with a flurry of activity that signaled the arrival of Dan’s extended family. Phil stumbled into the upstairs bathroom to put his contact lenses in and was greeted by a six-year-old sat firmly on the toilet, watching him with the startling intensity of a child.

“I remember you,” said the child. “You brought me to Harrods.”

Ah, Harrods. Phil’s secret weapon to get children on his good side. Dan had protested the ethicality of bribing children with gifts, but two hours into a particularly challenging babysitting day, he’d conceded that Phil had had the right idea all along.

“Auntie Karen made breakfast pancakes,” the child, now identified as Damien, reported. “You’re late.”

“Sorry.” Was there a Harrods in Wokingham? Was it open on Christmas Day? Could Phil buy his way back into Damien’s good books?

“I got you a Christmas present,” Damien said. “It’s a bauble I made in school.”

“That’s really sweet of you!” Phil felt his heart begin to warm. “I’m sure it’s a lovely bauble.”

“It’s alright.”

Phil wanted to cry. Where was Dan when you needed him? Probably still asleep. He’d shooed Phil away with a sleepy mumble this morning.

“Can you help me off the toilet please?”

Phil managed to make his way into the kitchen ten minutes later. Damien had been deposited into the arms of his mother, who seemed to barely have noticed.

Damien had not lied about the pancakes. Karen and Tim had set up a buffet line of pancakes and toppings on the breakfast bar, and it was perhaps the most magnificent sight Phil had ever seen. Dan was stood by the coffeemaker, looking drowned in his massive red jumper and making conversation with his father. As Phil approached, he pressed a cup of coffee into his hand and leaned in for a quick kiss.

It seemed so surreal.

“Get ready for your big debut,” Dan said. “Nan's is running late but once she gets here we’re all going to Christmas mass.”

 _Christmas mass_. Had Phil woken up in an alternate universe? Was he still dreaming? The coffee seemed to prove otherwise.

“Can we meet him yet?” someone called from the hallway, followed by a series of wolf-whistles. It really wasn’t as if Phil had never met Dan’s family — they regularly offered their futon anytime someone was in London, which meant Phil had met more of Dan’s extended family than he could remember.

“You’ve met him already,” Dan yelled back.

“Chrissy hasn’t!”

“Chrissy is Jonah’s new girlfriend. She’s American,” Karen whispered. She handed Phil a plate piled high with pancakes. “Eat up. Can’t have your stomach growling in church.”

“Do you want to pop your head out and say hello, Phil?” Dan said, laughing. “I think everyone’s a bit keen to love you.”

Dutifully, Phil did as he was told. A wave of _awww_ rippled across the room.

“Christmas is the one day we play pretend Happy Family,” Dan said, voice low, when Phil returned. “It’s only until Christmas mass, and then everyone breaks off to their own family Christmas and we get to have my nan and Nihilist Uncle James ‘round for dinner.”

Still, it wasn’t awful. It almost felt like a Lester family Christmas. Phil tucked into his pancakes and let himself live in the moment.

* * *

 

Phil had forgotten what Christmas mass was like. Sitting in a church made him feel sacrilegious — and he looked over at Dan, who was trying very hard to keep his eyes on the pastor.

Nan Howell, as she was fondly known to most, had fawned over Phil on the way to church. She’d always loved Phil best, a fate lamented by Dan who had fought hard to retain his position as Nan’s favourite, and one rejoiced by Henry, who at eighteen enjoyed less hugs and more money.

She’d held on tightly to his hand in the car, giggling over Dan’s oversized jumper and Chrissy’s bright pink puffer jacket. Nan Howell loved Phil and she always made it abundantly clear.

“Have you asked him yet?” Nan had whispered, which had been wholly ineffective considering the cramped space of the car and the fact that she was wedged between Phil and Dan.

Phil had faltered. It seemed treacherous to say _yes but I didn’t do it properly so he said no_. It seemed dishonest to say _no_. Was there a right answer?

“Oh Nan,” Dan had said, exasperatedly. “Don’t pressure him.”

“What about you then?” Nan had said, turning to glare at him playfully. “Have you asked this lovely boy yet?”

“Asked him what? To go to prom with me? Think we’re a bit too late for that, Nan,” Dan had said, and the conversation had been closed.

“He does love you,” Nan had assured Phil. “He’s just prickly, always is on Christmas Day.”

“Like a cactus,” Phil had agreed. And now they were sat in church listening to an interpretation of the Book of John. Phil had called his parents in the morning to wish them a Merry Christmas and had received official confirmation that his absence had been felt but they were willing to overlook it if he brought Dan home next year.

True to his word Phil was trying his best to forget about the black box. There wasn’t any point to thinking about it, although it would have been a nice distraction from the in-depth analysis of Jesus’s birth that was taking place at the moment.

The truth about marriage, or a Dan and Phil marriage, if you wanted to be specific about it, was that it wasn’t going to change a single thing. They weren’t going to stop hiding, they weren’t going to suddenly move into a house in the country and adopt a thousand dogs. They had the whole of America to travel, and Australia if they were lucky, and there was just absolutely no time to get married or enjoy getting married. There was no point to marriage other than to be able to, selfishly, maybe, call Dan his husband. Phil had refused labels his entire life, it seemed almost ridiculous that the one thing he craved was a label that said _husband_.

But what was wrong with wanting that?

Absolutely nothing. There was nothing wrong with wanting it or not wanting it. It would change nothing. It was meaningless.

Phil didn’t like the sound of that, so he tuned in to the story of Baby Jesus again and told himself everything was okay.

* * *

 

Nan Howell, for all her seventy-two years, was well and truly perceptive. She’d sensed Phil’s hesitation in the car, it seemed, and had since made it her mission to pry the truth from his cold, unliving hands if necessary. It was clear that Dan had inherited his sheer determination from his grandmother, because Phil swore this woman could extract government secrets from a dead spy if she really needed.

“Something’s happened,” she said. Phil had escaped to Dan’s bedroom because Nihilist Uncle James was asking him weird existential questions that he rather not think about. “About what I said in the car.”

“I may have asked Dan to marry me.”

“I take it from your tone that it wasn’t good news?” Nan sat herself down on the bed and patted the spot beside her.

“I didn’t give him a fair chance,” Phil admitted, and he _was_ ashamed of this — it wasn’t as if Dan had rejected a grand loving gesture; he’d said no because Phil hadn’t been in his right mind and they hadn’t talked about it. “We were in France and I just kind of — had a crisis.”

“Ah.” Nan cocked her head. “You know, my husband was a lot like you. He proposed about seven times before I accepted. The first time was two weeks after we’d met, you know. His whole family had done it that way. You meet a nice young lady, go out a couple of times, and you ask if she’s keen to get married, and a few days later you’re down at the register office and there’s an announcement in the morning paper. Trigger happy, we used to call him.”

“I mean, I did wait seven years,” Phil said. “But, you know, it wasn’t Dan’s fault. We stopped talking about marriage after we moved to London because things got really hectic and it didn’t seem possible.”

“Maybe seventh time’s the charm,” she said. “Dan’s always done what he wanted. Theatre, piano, seeing you in Manchester for the first time. It didn’t matter if we said no. He always found a way.”

“He has a ring,” Phil said. “Somewhere in this room he has a ring in a tiny black box, and _somehow_ , he wants me to forget about it.”

“He does love you,” said Nan. “I’ve never seen that boy happier than when he’s with you. You know, when he was little he used to play families all the time. He was the mum, and the dad, and the baby. Though, eventually, when Henry came along, Henry became the baby. But Dan was always the dad and the mum all at once.”

“He never told me that.”

“He must’ve felt embarrassed,” Nan said. “You know, Phil, back then when he would play families, Dan would have to have everything _just so_. The only reason he was both the mum and the dad was because the lovely young girl who used to come over and play, bless her heart, could never remember the lines to the script that Dan gave her. So he left her and played both parts on his own instead.”

“Always a perfectionist.” Phil sighed.

“I think, maybe, he’s still writing the script to go with that ring.”

Well, that was one way to think about it. Phil wasn’t sure how much he believed her, as much as he wanted to.

“Maybe,” Phil conceded. It wouldn’t do to hold on to hope like that, he knew, as much as Nan Howell meant well.

She patted his hand and smiled. “I do believe,” she said, and left it at that.

* * *

 

True to Dan's word, Christmas had been a lot less socialising than Phil had expected. Karen had chased them out of the house so that she could prepare Christmas dinner in peace. Henry had disappeared upstairs with the video game Phil had bought him and Tim was _gardening_ in the middle of winter. So here they were, walking to the park so Colin could have a run and a poo.

Life was truly thrilling.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” Dan said, as Colin nosed along the pavement. “About marriage.”

Phil felt his heart thump in his chest.

“Hear me out,” Dan said. “When you asked me about it in Paris, I had this whole mindset, y'know, it’s arbitrary, it’s a piece of paper, it’s something that we could really easily do without.”

Phil wasn’t sure if this was a conversation that was supposed to make him feel better or worse. He didn’t need to hear the cons of getting married, he knew them by heart. He could taste them in his sleep.

“I don’t really need you to tell me why it’s a bad idea, Dan,” Phil said eventually. His voice sounded a little hollow, even to him.

“I know.” Dan sighed, pulling Colin away from someone’s potted plant. “Why do you want to get married, Phil?”

“Because I want to,” Phil said, a little helplessly. “Because I love you and I don’t care if marriage is a piece of paper, it’s a piece of paper that proves — I don’t know what it proves, but it proves something. I love you, Dan, and if you never want to get married, fine, I don’t care, but I love every single day I get to spend with you, doesn’t matter if we’re waiting for a dog to poo or we’re touring the world — I don’t _care_ what the future holds, as long as you’re there. And I’ve told you this time and time and time again, I love you, I really, _really_ love you, and maybe I’m old-fashioned but marriage is something you do when you love somebody and that somebody loves you. I just can’t explain—”

Dan was kissing him now, one hand buried in his hair, the other on Colin’s dog leash. Every time Dan kissed him it felt like the world melted away, and it didn’t matter that they were in the middle of Wokingham, possibly in front of the house where Dan’s evil piano teacher used to live. Dan was kissing him like the first time on the Manchester Wheel, hesitant and desperate, heart-thumpingly _alive_.

“Kiss me like that every day and I won’t care about not being married,” Phil joked when they broke apart.

Dan looked at him, kiss-bruised mouth chapped from the cold, and took a deep breath.

“It’s not a fishing hook,” Dan said. “It’s a ring, and it’s yours, and, oh, fuck it—” He fished around in his pocket and emerged triumphant, the tiny black box in the middle of his palm.

“Schrodinger’s ring,” Phil said, feeling faint. “Sorry, I’ve been calling it that in my head for a while now.”

“You’re so weird,” Dan said, voice watery. “Look, Phil, I — we’ve been in this relationship for almost seven years now, and every single day I fall in love with you. I mean, some days you make it really difficult. Like when you steal my cereal and that time you left _one sock_ in the middle of our living room floor for like a week and that time you asked me to marry you in some random motel room in Paris. But I wake up every day and see you sitting with your coffee on our sofa and my heart hurts, because I love you— I love you every single time I see you.

“And when you asked me to marry you then it was really out of the blue, y’know, and I kept thinking that I didn’t know how to say stuff like this or tell you all the things I loved about you — like, that’s your thing, y’know what I mean? That’s like, a Phil thing, you’re really good at telling people what you love about them and I’m not; I just know that I love you and we’ve lived in this weird floaty limbo for so long of _being_ yet _not being_ and I mean, life is short, the world could end tomorrow, and what I do know now is that if the world ends tomorrow and I never got to call you my _husband_ , that would really fucking suck.”

“So,” Dan said, taking a deep breath. “Philip Michael Lester.”

“So,” Phil replied shakily. Dan was getting down on one knee now, and Phil felt like his own were about to give out. “Daniel James Howell.”

“I am _hopelessly,_ _a hundred and ninety-two percent_ , _desperately_ in love with you, and if you would do me the honour of being my husband — I would be the luckiest guy in the world.”

“Only a hundred and ninety-two percent?” Phil joked.

“ _Phil_ , stop ruining the romantic moment, you absolute _flop_.”

“Get back up here,” Phil said, hearing his own voice crack. “Get back up here _please_.”

Dan complied. Phil felt his hand move of its own accord to cradle the curve of Dan’s jaw, proving it was real, anchoring both of them in the moment.

“I love you,” Phil said, “more than a hundred and ninety-two percent.” His heart fluttered like a butterfly on cocaine. 

“So you’ll marry me,” Dan said, meeting Phil's eyes. 

“I will,” Phil promised.

“Do you want to put your fishing hook on?” Dan asked. He held it out like a small treasure, and Phil supposed it was, in more ways than one. “I measured your finger in your sleep so I totally know it fits.”

“You’re so weird,” Phil said, but put it on anyway. It shone in the winter sunlight, a band that felt like it had always meant to be there. He never wanted to take it off, he didn't care if people would talk about it, he didn't care if anyone tweeted about it. There was no way he was ever going to take it off. 

Colin whined, pulling against his leash.

“I think Colin needs to poo,” Phil said.

“Oh, Phil. So romantic.” Dan rolled his eyes, but slipped his fingers between Phil’s and let Colin lead the way.

* * *

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in two very distinct bursts over the past 1.5 years. The first half in December 2015, and then the second just yesterday - March 2017. In between I had stopped keeping up with Dan and Phil, and a challenging week last month propelled me back into their world.
> 
> I love Dan and Phil with all my heart - all of these fics come from a place of love, as I'm sure you must know, but I do think my days of writing fic are over. Forgive me if there have been inconsistencies in this fic or if my Dans and Phils don't sound like them anymore; I've been out of the loop for a long time!
> 
> In any case, I wanted to give them (or my versions of them) a happy ending, so I've completed this to share with all of you. Thank you for reading this far!


End file.
